


i want the guts and glory, baby

by nialltalbot



Series: you can wear the crown, but you're no princess [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anorexia, Bulimia, Caution Before Reading, Depression, Eating Disorders, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, attempted suicide, suicide letter, surprise surprise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-07 19:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nialltalbot/pseuds/nialltalbot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because what he felt was no longer hunger, nor the constant tidal waves of depression pulling him down under. No, now it was a tornado, spiraling about in his head knocking over the good things and constantly picking up comments about his weight and throwing them about. He'd had enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i want the guts and glory, baby

**Author's Note:**

> Slight trigger for bulimia.

The camera jostled, static along with the grainy pictures, it finally settled on Niall, the blonde bombshell, his hair was every-which-way, tussled and fluffed with little to no effort. He still looked like the little boy from Mullingar with a dream. His hands reach out to grasp the camera lens thats out of range, making the video shake and shutter with each passing second.

"Is this thing on?" Niall asks himself, or the people that are watching it, his nose scrunching up and his mouth pulling into a frown; it looked on his face that usually held a grin or dopey smile. "Oh god, it is."

"Hi, anyone that's watching this, it could be months and months after, or y'know you've just found it under the bathroom mat, either way, you're watching me ramble on, my bad," Niall smiles happily, but its not a happy video, it shouldn't be. "I really don't know how to say this, or y'know how to put it so, I'm-' Niall stutters, his voice cracking, "I'm going to, to tell you a story, about this little boy, abou-about me."

"I was, no, no, no, Oh god, sorry," Niall started, his voice quivering with the panic thats drifted down and settled in his bones, "He was, yeah he was. He was a happy kid, the little pudgy kids you'd see with their parents and siblings that didn't have a care in the world. Yeah, well when he was nine, he decided that... he didnt want to be the pudgy kid anymore.'

Niall bit into his lower lip, his eyes casting downward at his lap, they couldn't see futher than his lap since the video cut off at his his stomach. "We had, come home from uh, this fancy resturant, and they had alot of food," he stops talking, bile rising in his throat with every word he spoke, "I think I ate the whole resturant."

Niall balls up his hand and presses it to his lips, his cheeks puffing up. He leaves the little square of the video. He leaves the line of sight, the bathroom light floods the frame and the sound of Niall's knees hitting the tile in the loo reaches the camera. As does multiple retching sounds. He's throwing up, not that he didn't prior to recording the video. He looks disgusting when he comes back, his eyes are rimmed pink and his lips are swollen. 

"Sorry, I just, y'know," Niall shrugs, giving the camera a small smile, "Anyways, the food."

"He thought, that he was going to be sick his stomach was pudgy and his arms and his legs and he wished he could throw up all the fat. So he did," Niall wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt, taking a deep breath through his nose. "He went into the bathroom, the nine-year-old with an impending future, and he shoved his fingers down his throat, and threw up."

Niall sounded more like he was defending the boy, like he was a father to a criminal and he's screaming and yelling the boy's innocent but nobody will listen, not when they know it's a lie. "It carries on from there, my mum thought I had caught the flu, but I didn't and I can't," he paused to breathe in deeply, his body shuttering with it, "I can't do it anymore."

"I'm not, not going to leave a sappy letter because," Niall voice cracks, interrupting him as a lump balls up in his throat, preventing him from talking without bursting into hysterical tears, so his voice lowers a pitch and goes raspy, like it did when he was ten and his parents sat down and told they weren't together anymore, he had the same ringing in his ears as e did in that moment, "Because I don't want to, I don't want you, to, to be sad when I'm gone."

Niall laughs all of a sudden, the dam breaking with a chortle, "You're gonna miss me when I'm gone," they laugh too, because that was Niall, their little Irish boy who was known for being a dork. "Sorry I just, can't handle people being sad, much less myself, dunno how I got on for eleven years."

"Anyways," Niall palm goes out of frame to rub the back of his neck, "I used to think the size of my jeans defined how highly I thought of myself, well I had a size six jeans on a scale from self-loathing to three hundred."

"I guess, it was sort of funny to me, that he, he hated himself more and was willing to change the fat around his stomach and intake more just to throw it all back up just to get acceptance in return," Niall curls his fingernails into his palm, wanting nothing more than to claw out his of his own skin and say that he survived the monster that claimed him, "I love you guys, more than those three words can ever explain how much you mean to me as a person."

"I can't properly say goodbye," Niall says with his lips tight, holding back everything he wants to say, "That would hurt too much, and I just can't do that, I'm so sorry." 

Niall reached up and out of frame before the expression on his face changed, "Almost forgot," his hands return to his lap, "Please, don't cry when I'm gone, I know you're going to because now looking at it it's probably something to cry over, but just remember me as the idiot that always was, I love you all, so much, you've given me everything I could've asked for and more."

"This is, Niall James Horan, the pudgy kid who is no more, thanking you all for everything you've done for me. I love you."

Niall's hands are shaking as the camera shakes, he waves one last time, and he looks as if he's going to accomplish something great, but he isn't, he ends the video with a black screen and a last image of a shaky blonde, close to tears.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos if you love me, :) I might write responses like how the boys and his family and how the world took it.


End file.
